30 September 2013

The ‘World’s Largest Film Camera’

Photographer Dennis Manarchy designed the ‘world’s largest film camera’—a 35-foot-long camera that is capable of producing “6-foot-long negatives, and 24-foot-high portraits in sharp, super high-res quality”.

Together, they will be touring the country to document the “diverse cultural heritage of the USA” and record “vanishing cultures” in a project called ‘Butterflies & Buffalo’.

Traveling by a large trailer, Manarchy hopes to capture portraits of people from various ethnic groups—such as Native Americans, Amish, Cajun, Appalachians, Gullah-Geechee, many others.

According to Creative Review, the device is capable of producing images “with over 1,000 times more detail than the most advance digital cameras around today”.

“We have the ability to make a print that is two stories tall, with detail that no one’s ever seen before,” said Manarchy. “The crystal and the clarity of these things in these super large forms takes these people and gives them a certain level of dignity, but also puts it on an epic scale. You look into their eyes and you can feel something, and people look special. It's a story that no one's heard before.”

The project ‘Butterflies & Buffalo’, is currently showing in downtown Chicago. It will then make its way to Monroe, Wisconsin.